Maybe this is an example of a scale down of the exercise from an aircraft carrier to an amphibious assault ship?:
The USS Wasp, the U.S. Navy’s multipurpose amphibious assault ship, in a file photo. (Yonhap)
The U.S. military plans to send a key amphibious assault ship, used for a detachment of F-35B vertical landing stealth fighter jets, to a combined exercise with South Korea in April, a defense source here said Monday.
The allies’ Marines are scheduled to start the Ssangyong (double dragon) exercise here early next month in connection with the Foal Eagle training. They have yet to announce an exact schedule.
Among U.S. assets to take part in the Ssangyong drill are the USS Wasp, the Navy’s 40,500-ton multipurpose amphibious assault ship. [Yonhap]
Supporters of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye participate in a protest near Anguk Station in downtown Seoul on March 10, 2018, the one year anniversary of the Constitutional Court’s ruling to uphold the impeachment by the National Assembly. (Yonhap)
The 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade has unfortunately lost another soldier yesterday:
Soldiers from E Company, 2-1 Air Defense Artillery Battalion stand in a formation last month at Camp Carroll, South Korea. MONIK PHAN/U.S. ARMY PHOTO
A soldier assigned to the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade was found dead Friday at Camp Carroll, a U.S. base south of Seoul, the military said.
The cause of death is under investigation, and the soldier’s name is being withheld until 24 hours after family is notified, according to the brigade’s public affairs office.
This could be a trial balloon by the ROK government to see what the US reaction would be to scaling down the upcoming joint exercises:
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo (R) talks with U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift in Seoul on March 8, 2018. (Yonhap)
South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo “jokingly” said Thursday the United States does not need to send a nuclear submarine and other strategic assets to Korea for the upcoming joint military drills.
He made the remark during a meeting with visiting Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift amid speculation that Seoul hopes to scale down this year’s Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises in order to maintain the mood of inter-Korean reconciliation spurred by the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
“Lots of changes are expected in South-North relations and (security conditions) surrounding the Korean Peninsula going forward,” the minister told the admiral, who is retiring in a few months.
In particular, Song added, the two Koreas plan to hold their third summit talks in late April with South Korea and the U.S. scheduled to stage the annual exercises.
He asked Swift to keep doing his best for a firm defense posture through his retirement, reportedly slated for May.
“You need not deploy (defense assets) like nuclear submarines during the remainder of your tenure as commander,” the minister said with a slight smile in front of TV cameras.
Swift briefly replied that his troops will stay ready for deployment in case of an order from national leaders.
Ministry officials later played down Song’s remark as a joke. [Yonhap]
Via a reader tip comes this news of how drinking is being banned in designated areas in South Korea’s mountain parks:
Trekkers at Daedunsan Provincial Park line up to buy liquor from vendors on Mt. Daedun. Provincial watchdogs have been reluctant to shut down the illegal traders, allowing the business to go on for years. / Korea Times file
Laws banning drinking on mountain tops and in other designated natural areas start this month.
The National Assembly passed the revised anti-drinking laws on Tuesday that affect visitors to mountains and parks under national, city or provincial management, the environment ministry said Wednesday. The laws begin on Mar. 13.
They include fines of 50,000 won ($46) for a first offence and 100,000 won for subsequent violations for people caught drinking in the designated areas.
The ministry’s latest bid reflects its intention to lower accidents in the regions. From 2012 until 2017, 64 of over 1,300 accidents on mountains and in parks were due to alcohol intoxication. Ten accidents were fatal. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the ban includes smoking as well. It seems like this is going to be incredibly difficult to enforce unless they plan to have police patrol every mountain.
This is all laying the groundwork for when the Inter-Korean Summit will eventually happen:
This photo, provided by South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, shows Kim Yong-chol (L), North Korea’s point man on South Korea, holding a meeting with special envoys of South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a Pyongyang Hotel on March 5, 2018. (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hosted a welcome dinner for South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoys on Monday, Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.
“Chairman Kim Jong-un is currently hosting a dinner for the special envoys,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing.
It is the first time the reclusive North Korean leader has met South Korean officials. The dinner began at 6 p.m.
Kim’s meeting with the South Korean envoys apparently reflected his willingness to improve his country’s ties with the South.
Moon and his aides have repeatedly highlighted the importance of talks between the U.S. and North Korea for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and have also noted that the trip by Moon’s special envoys was partly aimed at arranging such dialogue.
“I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community,” Chung Eui-yong, Moon’s chief envoy and head of the presidential National Security Office, said shortly before his departure for Pyongyang. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but who is Chung Eui-yong? He is a career diplomat that from 2001-2004 during the liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations served as South Korea’s UN ambassador. He would then get elected as a legislator for the same party that President Moon is in. So obviously Choi and Moon and been around each other a long time and Choi is someone that Moon trusts to represent his interests with the North Koreans.
Families of the dead and missing crew watch in despair as a capsized fishing boat is hoisted at a pier in Wando on March 3, 2018. The boat was found floating upside down in waters off the country’s southwest coast on Feb. 28. Two of the seven crew on board were found dead inside the boat, and the rest remain missing. (Yonhap)
A group of South Korean athletes moves into their lodging facility in the country’s eastern alpine town of PyeongChang on March 3, 2018, to participate in the upcoming Paralympics to be held from March 9-18. (Yonhap)
This sounds more like an attempt to get more teaching jobs for Koreans instead of to native English teachers:
Most English teachers in primary and secondary schools do not believe that having native-speaking assistants is beneficial in cost-effective terms, a recent survey shows.
Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education surveyed 312 teachers ― 212 elementary school teachers and 100 middle school teachers ― who have been partnered with native English-speaking instructors.
More than half of those surveyed cited the native speakers’ low competence, poor attitude, lack of experience and mediocre education benefit. They said the number should be reduced or the program should be abolished.
They said it would be better to train more Koreans to teach English. [Korea Times]
That is what a professor from Hankuk University believes:
Professor Kim Jang-ho from Hankuk University believes that for this reason, the detente won’t last. He is also sceptical of President Moon’s motives and doesn’t believe there has been any breakthrough with North Korea.
“President Moon is trying to buy some time so that he can achieve a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un.
“Our president wants to meet him to symbolically say that North Korea is a normal nation and they are capable of talking. It automatically propels him to the list for the Nobel Peace Prize. But the US and Japan will pressure us to go ahead with military exercises as soon as possible, late April maybe.
“I think certainly with those exercises continuing, and they will go ahead definitely before May, we will go from the thaw to tension all over again.”
Many doubt North Korea’s willingness to discuss getting rid of its nuclear weapons with the US. Kim Jong-un has tried to reassure Seoul by saying his missiles are not pointing at South Koreans, they’re pointing instead at the “US aggressors”, and that they could be used to protect all of Korea.
I put it to Professor Bong Young-shik that North Korea would never give up its missiles. The research fellow at Yonsei University disagreed.
“The North Korean regime’s ultimate goal is survival and security,” the expert in North Korea said. [BBC]
You can read more at the link, but before anyone considers President Moon for a Nobel Peace Prize they should realize that when he was the Chief of Staff for former President Roh Moo-hyun, they helped to funnel billions of dollars in aid that allowed the Kim regime to build their nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
You would think though that after the embarrassment of awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to former ROK President Kim Dae-jung the Nobel committee would be weary of awarding one to another ROK president. This is because it was later discovered that the Inter-Korean Summit between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il was only possible after North Korea received a $500 million dollar bribe.
